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Saturday, April 16, 2016

A Smaller Relay Module

Some of you may recall way, WAY back when I first started my dash install I had a series of NAIS relays mounted onto a piece of Lexan plastic that I installed in the area where the old Gauge Cluster used to be. If not maybe this image might refresh your memory a little ;) One of the reasons I had done it this way was,one: I was not sure how many Relays I was going to need,two: I was not really sure how to go about hooking up any devices I was going to want to install which also meant not knowing how many Relays were going to be needed too. So needless to say I was a little all over the map in some areas and fairly indecisive as to what direction to go in. So I went with the idea of;"I would rather have too many than not enough."

Eventually as this project progressed and I started developing my own Dash Software (Knight O.S.) things started to become a little more clear as to how many and what sort of Relays I would need. So I pulled the old Gauge Cluster housing out of "Mothballs" and began modifying that to house the Arduino Micro Controller and some Relay modules.I took about 6 of the NAIS Relays and soldered them onto a piece of Proto-board along with screw terminal blocks that will serve and the low voltage inputs to trigger the magnetic coil of each Relay. I then soldered on some 18 AWG wire for the outputs on the switch side of the relays. I soldered some pretty thick tracks onto the photo-board to make sure I had more than enough to drive any current the Relays are capable of, probably went a little "over kill" but what the heck, you know me..... lol or you should by now. ;) I took the extra precaution of reinforcing the wires soldered onto the photo-board by applying a good coat of fibreglass resin on the tracks side of the board and the top side. rest assured those soldered connections are going nowhere. ;)

I then took a strip of high density foam rubber that has a sticky back side and applied that to the track side of the board. (See Left)I then mounted the newer more compact relay module into the Gauge Cluster housing like this. (See Right)With that all hooked up in there nice and neat that will give me 6 more additional Relays to use if I need them. I still need to mount in the 5 pin Relay that is used for the Headlights & Running Lights, but I should be able to work that into this scenario. I'll keep you posted on what I do for that.